Through a Glass Darkly: Reinforcing Beverage Icons By Leveraging Cultural Identity at Beverage Sites, the Guinness Store House, Dublin and la Cité ...
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Journal of Franco-Irish Studies Volume 6 | Issue 1 Article 3 2019 Through a Glass Darkly: Reinforcing Beverage Icons By Leveraging Cultural Identity at Beverage Sites, the Guinness Store House, Dublin and la Cité du Vin, Bordeaux Susan Boyle Technological University Dublin, susanboyle@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.dit.ie/jofis Recommended Citation Boyle, Susan (2019) "Through a Glass Darkly: Reinforcing Beverage Icons By Leveraging Cultural Identity at Beverage Sites, the Guinness Store House, Dublin and la Cité du Vin, Bordeaux," Journal of Franco-Irish Studies: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 3. Available at: https://arrow.dit.ie/jofis/vol6/iss1/3 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License
Boyle: through a glass darkly
Through A Glass Darkly: reinforcing beverage icons by leveraging cultural identity at
beverage tourism sites, the Guinness Store House, Dublin and La Cité Du Vin,
Bordeaux
Susan Boyle
National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies
“To explore food and drink is unavoidably to visit culture also.” (Boniface 2003, p.1).
The Guinness Storehouse, Dublin and La Cité Du Vin, Bordeaux are ambitious beverage
tourism sites. Both have successfully leveraged the cultural capital associated with the iconic
beverages produced in their environs to devise dedicated visitor attractions.
Beverage tourism is a developing, niche sector of a larger global food tourism trend. This
paper explores La Cité Du Vin, Bordeaux and the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, and shows
how these sites have become the physical embodiment of the story or culture of these
beverages. Research pertaining to the broader field of food tourism is referenced as it offers
insights which help to frame beverage tourism in a wider gastro-tourism context. It is
impossible to separate food and drinks from the people and cultures that have developed
them. As people migrate, their food and beverages also travel the globe functioning as
cultural ambassadors for their place and culture of origin. Croissants, ramen, tacos, Irish stout
and Bordeaux claret are no longer only enjoyed by locals or visitors. These iconic food and
drinks have a world-wide consumer base. If the cultural essence of a country can be distilled
into one glass, then the icons of a glass of red wine and a pint of stout have become a
synecdoche for France and Ireland respectively. Moreover, these beverages have spawned a
tourist industry founded on pilgrimage to the source of these liquids.
Stout and Claret: Iconic Drinks
Food and beverage experiences are framed temporally, geographically and culturally. People
mark special occasions through food and drink. The earliest farmers celebrated the bounty of
harvest, and across cultures, weddings, births and deaths are marked by consuming particular
foods and drinks often connected with religious observance. Mardi Gras is a case in point.
Partaking in a ritualised consumption of food and drink connects people with each other
through shared experience. Many food and drinks rituals have a public aspect to their
observance, yet memorable food and drink experiences are often nuanced, private,
momentary and ephemeral. They are linked to exact ripeness or produced at a particular time
of year in a specific location. An illustration of this is chef Samin Nosrat’s eloquent
observations on the fleeting ripeness on apricots:
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For a few weeks each year, I make a game of tending to a small pile of Blenheim
apricots, my favorite variety. I lay them on a platter in a single layer, turning and tasting
one or more a day until they reach their two-day peak. Then, I perch myself over the
kitchen sink, eating them one by one, revelling in their velvety flesh while sugary juice
drips down my chin and elbows. (Nosrat 2018)
Nosrat delights in devouring the apricots at the peak of their deliciousness and later in the
piece morns that experience and so, in an effort to preserve the perfect memory of the fruit,
makes jam. Unlike many specific seasonal regional products, which can only be consumed by
locals or visitors some beverages have the ability to transcend time and space, none more so
than Guinness Stout and Bordeaux wine.
Guinness stout and Bordeaux wine have travelled beyond the physical geographic boundaries
of the countries in which they are produced to enter the physical palates, and significantly,
the minds of the people who imbibe them. These beverages each have a long legacy. Their
histories reach hundreds of years into the past. A number of influencing factors have enabled
them to break free of the shackles which inhibit the mobility of other food and drinks.
Through the process of being consumed over time, both in their place of origin and abroad,
these beverages have become an essential part of shared culture, social experiences and
ritualised behaviour for the people who consume them. Interestingly, present day and
sustained historical export patterns for both beverages ensure that many people taste
Guinness stout or Bordeaux wine long before they set foot in either Ireland or France as the
global market for these beverages greatly exceeds their local populations. By consuming
these beverages, imbibers become taste-tourists while essentially not leaving their homes.
This tourism without travel facilitates a visceral form of engagement through which these
beverages enter the consciousness of consumer. Imbibed freely and in great quantities outside
their place of origin, these beverages imprint on the palate a thirst to experience them in their
original surroundings and have become drivers for an incoming tourist market. The beverages
are part of the journey to another place; either imagined or physical ensuring that visitors to
La Cité du Vin and the Guinness Storehouse have acquired a taste for Dublin or Bordeaux
before they even purchase their plane ticket.
Exporting a sense of place
It is important to recognise that stout and claret were intended for commercial export. By
their very nature they are fermented products which imbues them with considerably more
longevity than ripening fruit. These beverages can survive transport to other potential markets
from the established commercial ports of Dublin and Bordeaux. Both beverages share a
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significantly long history of export. The first recorded export of Guinness ales was to
England on 19 May 1769, 10 years after the Guinness brewery was established at St. James
Gate. There is no mention of exporting a stout from this time as Arthur Guinness was not yet
brewing the beer style he would become world famous for. In the latter part of the 18th
century, porter was a relatively new style of beer. It was first brewed in London by Ralph
Harwood in 1722 and its popularity did not reach Ireland until the end of the 18th century.
When it did become fashionable, it was so popular that in 1799 Arthur Guinness brewed his
last traditional Dublin ale and from then on brewed only the “new” beer porter. (Brady 2018).
The history of wine and wine trade in Bordeaux pre-dates the production of Guinness by a
considerable duration. It is believed that the Romans brought viticulture to the Bordeaux
region sometime around the mid-1st century. The wine produced at this time was mostly for
local consumption until 1152 when Henry Plantagenet (Henry II of England) married Eleanor
of Aquitaine. This union confirmed the province of Aquitaine as part of the Angevin Empire
and increased the potential for trade across the region. The export of wines became
economically significant and the popularity of Bordeaux wines in England increased
dramatically (Millar 2016).
The sustained export of Guinness stout and Bordeaux wine and the demand for these
beverages outside their place of origin, has ensured the transition of these beverages from
merely local products to highly sought-after commodities. Continuous, prolonged export of
both beverages has played a significant role in building their iconic status. These beverages
live beyond the place in which they are produced and have been mythologised. Lee and Shin
(2014) state that “a myth can be regarded as a story that is worth delivering” and that
“Sharing a story is related to the development of feelings about the place.” Through the
development of beverages tourism sites in Dublin and Bordeaux, Guinness and Bordeaux
wine have established physical sites at their places of origin from which to tell their stories.
By strengthening the link between the beverages and where they come from, a channel for
experiencing the history of each beverage is formed. Each site provides the visitors with an
experience, a narrative about the beverage and an environment in which information about
the beverage can be consumed or absorbed and then physically tasted. This channel works
both ways. When imbibing the beverages in places removed from the origin site, the
significance of the place of origin to the myth of these drinks is embedded in the concept of
the consumer’s experience. Imbibing the beverage itself becomes a symbol of its place of
origin, and so, a pint of Guinness is interchangeable with being in Dublin and may even
stands for the country of Ireland itself. Morgan and Prichard (2004) suggest that a place
becomes popularised through the sharing of experience among visitors. Engagement and
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exchanges between host-created narratives at visitor experiences and guest-created content,
(photos, video, social media word of mouth etc.) establishes connections between people and
the places they have visited. This grows a community of those who have shared physical
locations and experiences. These communities expand and cross temporal and spatial
boundaries when visitors share their experiences. While the advent of social media, without
doubt enables people to more widely connect and share, the iconic status of Bordeaux wine
and Guinness stout was well established before the smartphone was invented. Thus, the
Guinness Storehouse and La Cité du Vin are responses to export success. They identified the
tourism potential and provided a dedicated experience for visitor who are already familiar
with these beverages and who want to experience them in their place of origin. Moreover,
their success indicates that they are tourism destinations in and of themselves.
Bordeaux Wine and Guinness Stout as Status markers
Both Guinness and the wines of Bordeaux, have long been enjoyed by the socially
significant, elite and powerful. In the case of Bordeaux wine, Claret was the preferred
libation of Georgian Ireland’s élite (Kellaghan 2012). In more recent years, state visits to
Ireland by dignitaries are more often than not marked by a photo opportunity with a creamy
pint of Guinness. We need only reference the state visit of Bill Clinton, President of the
United States of America in 2000; the state visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great
Britain in 2011 and the state visit of Barack Obama, President of the United States of
America in 2011, which all incorporated an opportunity to drink Guinness. Through
consumption over time, stout and claret have been mythologised and have transcended the
realm of the ordinary becoming icons with a cultural weight far beyond the physical space
they fill in a glass. Whilst Bordeaux wine carries the aspirational associations which go hand
in hand with expensive wines, Irish stout holds a rather different yet particular cultural status
and significance. This dark, malty beer finds its natural home in the pub rather that at the
dinner table or in fine dining settings. It is associated with Irish literature and poetry, making
cameo appearances in the works of Joyce, Beckett and Behan. The association between
alcohol and writers is not exclusive to Ireland but in most other instances the exact alcohol is
incidental, except for the Bohemian affection for Absinthe. In Dublin the writers’ pubs were
Guinness pubs and as such have spawned one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions,
The Literary Pub crawl, which of course starts with a pint of plain.
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Food and Beverage Tourism
Food and beverage tourism is an identified growing tourism sector. A tourist’s primary
motivation when choosing a destination may not exclusively be a desire to engage this type
of tourism, yet, food and drinks are an integral and significant aspect of every tourist
experience, not just food tourists. Simply put, all tourists must eat and drink while abroad and
so, encountering specific local food and beverage culture is an inevitability of travel. “100%
of travellers eat and drink, although not everyone is motivated to travel because of food and
drink (…) past research has proven that travellers of any financial means like good food and
drink.” (World Food Travel Association 2018).
Significantly, The World Food Travel Association notes in their most recent report:
For the first time in the history of the tourism industry interest in food and beverage
among traveller has gone main stream. As evidence, we look to our own 2016 Food
Travel Monitor in which we learned the 93% of travellers have engaged in a unique or
memorable food or beverage experience other than dining out. In other words, almost
everyone can now be considered a food traveller. (World Food Travel Association
2018, p.5)
It is known that tourists interested in food and drink will seek out opportunities to engage
with the local food and drinks culture of an area while visiting. A study which looked at
people who self-identify as being consciously motivated by food and align themselves with a
sustainable food ethos in this instance the Slow Food Movement, observed that food and
beverage experiences are rarely the primary motivation for these people to travel, yet when
they get to their destination this demographic will actively seek out food and beverage related
activities. (Lee et al. 2014). Although still a relatively small sector within the food tourism
category, or as the World Food Association would state the tourism sector at large, beverage
tourism is a specific growing area. According to The Scotch Whisky Association, a record
number of tourists visited Scotch whisky distilleries in 2018. The annual survey recorded 1.9
million visits, amounting to an 11.4% increase on the previous year. Spending at visitor
centres was worth £60.9m an increase of 15.6%. (BBC 2018). In the United States of
America, an estimated 10 million people visit craft breweries annually and this number is
growing (Herz 2016). The World Food Association (2018) notes that when discussing food
tourism, they are also including beverage tourism.
Beverage tourism has traditionally been dominated by multi-national corporations who have
included visitor experiences at or alongside beverage production sites. e.g. the Heineken
Visitor experience in Amsterdam (Heineken Holdings), Coors Brewery (SAB Miller &
Molston, Colorado), Old Jameson Distillery, (Pernod Ricard, Dublin). The location of these
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experiences tends to be at the original site of production or the location most associated with
the product and may or may not incorporate any production facilities. The visitor will
certainly learn the history and the branding story of the beverage but often will not see the
actual beverage being manufactured. Beverages often take considerable time to produce. The
fermenting and aging stages are far from instantaneous and offer little to visually excite the
visitor. Likewise, the practical aspects of production such as stainless-steel fermenting tanks
and bottling lines lack the romance or mystic many visitors seek. This can be a challenge for
beverage tourism sites, yet La Cité du Vin and the Guinness Storehouse are elegant examples
of how beverage tourisms sites respond to the challenges of necessarily mundane production.
In aesthetically pleasing and well-designed spaces, they provide a curated narrative for the
visitor, which focuses on the cultural and gastronomic aspects of the beverage rather than the
production. In doing so they elevate these liquids, convert the ordinary into the extraordinary
and position themselves as the home of these iconic beverages.
Guinness Storehouse: Ireland’s most visited ticketed tourism site
The Guinness Storehouse is Ireland’s most successful beverage tourism example. It is
Ireland’s number one paid tourist destination year on year (Guinness Press Release 2017)
while drinking Guinness in a pub in Ireland consistently ranks as a “must do” activity for
visitors to Ireland (Fáilte Ireland 2018). Guinness is a brand with very specific origins. Its
archive is housed at St. James Gate where a team of dedicated archivists work with the
collection. It comprises all manner of brand artefacts, including recipe books, employment
records and branding paraphernalia. The archive proves a rich source of information for the
visitor experience and imbues the overall narrative with credibility as it is possible to
accurately date specific moments in Guinness history. It is noteworthy that the Guinness
Storehouse revenue is significant and as much as it has provided inspiration for other
beverage tourisms attractions it has also become a template or the starting point for beverage
tourism sites within the Diageo portfolio.
On 18th of March 2018, the day after St. Patrick’s Day, the Guinness Storehouse had its
largest number of visitors to date with over 10, 000 people visiting over the course of 7.5
hours (Fox 2018). A total of 1,711,281 visitors passed through its doors over the course of
2017, an increase of more than 200, 000 visitors on 2016 numbers. The Guinness Storehouse
is Ireland’s most visited ticketed tourist site. Since opening in 2000, it has attracted almost 18
million visitors. Diageo commissioned an independent economic impact report on the
Guinness Storehouse which was carried out by CHL Consulting Company. The findings of
this report identified the Guinness Storehouse as a key factor in attracting international
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visitors to Ireland. 34% of respondents stated that a visit to the Guinness Storehouse played a
crucial role in their decision to travel to Ireland. The report states that this translates to an
economic contribution of €361.2 million over a 12-month period (Diageo 2018). Not only
does visiting the Guinness storehouse top the list of things for visitors to do in Dublin but it is
a significant motivating factor for visitors to visit Ireland in the first place and demonstrates
the economic potential of specific beverage tourism.
Diageo has recognised the lucrative beverage tourism sector and is aware of how tourism
sites connect people experientially to their brand. To this end, the company’s currently
investing substantially in a number of others beverage tourism sites. On James St. Dublin, a
disused power plant opposite St. James Gate is being developed to support their new whiskey
brand Roe & Co. Copper stills were installed in October 2018 and the attraction is due to
welcome visitors in 2019. The Open Gate Brewery, a take on an American style craft beer tap
room, initially a Dublin pilot brewery on Diageo’s Dublin campus, has been rolled out to an
international site in Baltimore, Maryland. This new brewery will be the first Guinness
presence on US soil since 1954, and the first ever purpose-built Guinness brewery in
American history. In April 2018, the company announced the biggest single investment in
the history of Scottish tourism which will see £150 million invested over three years into
Johnny Walker visitor experience in Edinburgh (Diageo 2018).
Originally, The Guinness Storehouse was proposed as a reaction to a perceived drop in
interest for the Guinness brand. The annual financial report for Diageo released in 2000
revealed the first drop in Guinness sales in 214 years (Milmo 2000). Guinness had
established a reputation across various available media for its innovative advertising which
often framed Guinness in surprising social contexts or stood apart from contemporary
advertising in artistic or creative merit, yet the brand was losing market share and with that its
relevance to Dubliners and also beer drinkers in other markets. In 1998 an invitation was
extended to the design firm Imagination to design a replacement for the Guinness Hopstore.
When the newly designed Guinness storehouse opened in 2000 it and has proved enormously
successful, breathing fresh air into the brand and solidified St James Gate as a tourist
destination, drinking stout as an essential aspect of a visitors experience and Guinness as an
icon for Dublin itself.
The climate for La Cité du Vin
La Cité du Vin was opened by President of France François Hollande, May 31, 2016. Prior to
this, Bordeaux was in a highly paradoxical situation regarding wine and the tourist
experience. While the wines of Bordeaux had gained an international reputation for
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excellence, this world of wine was reserved exclusively for members of the wine trade. Wine
in Bordeaux is primarily an agricultural industry not a tourist attraction and this world of
high-end wine was largely inaccessible to general tourists. Bordeaux is essentially a city of
wine, it is inextricably linked to the wine industry yet it has no wineries or vineyards within
the city limits and its famed chateaux lie 30-50km outside the city centre. In general, access
to vineyards is restricted to trade visits by prior arrangement and trade shows such as
Vinexpo, which takes place every 2 years in the city, is only open to people who actively
work with wine. Moreover, tourists with a passing interest in wine may not necessarily be
interested in highly technical or detailed information about wine and viticulture which means
their needs are simply not shared by wine industry professionals. To ameliorate the lack of a
wine tourism offering in the heart of a world-renowned wine producing area, in 1995 the
seeds for a dedicated wine tourism centre were sown in public consciousness but for various
political and economic reasons the plan was abandoned (Cusin and Passbois-Ducros 2014).
However, by 2008 the climate was much more amiable to an ambitious wine tourism project
that would become known as La Cité Du Vin. In 2007, Bordeaux became a UNESCO world
heritage site, which heralded a substantial increase in tourist numbers. In the years prior to
this, the city itself, had embarked on an extensive program of urban regeneration; a new tram
system reduced traffic congestion in the city centre, the wharfs were redeveloped. There was
an increase in airport traffic and the grime from years of urban pollution was removed from
the facades of the buildings revealing gleaming sandstone which transformed the city’s
aspect. A city, which had in the past been known as “the sleeping beauty”, was rising from
slumber (Cusin and Passbois-Ducros 2014).
This regeneration was done under the stewardship of Alain Juppé who was elected Mayor of
Bordeaux in 1995 heralding a new era for the city, whose previous mayor had held the role
for 48 years (Cusin and Passbois-Ducros 2014). Juppé was ambitious and decided to position
Bordeaux not only as the wine capital of France but as a gateway to the global wine industry.
In the Quest for Identities: Consumption of Wine in France, Marion Demossier notes that a
decline in consumption of wine in France lead to the emergence of, what she describes as a
“new” wine culture in the 1970s, one which frames wine as a cultural artefact and commodity
(Demossier 2001). Jupeé had designs for Bordeaux to compete for the title of “European
Capital of Culture” in 2013, a feat which would firmly align wine and culture, the centrepiece
of his plan was building an unparalleled tourist centre, in Bordeaux dedicated to wine (Thach
and Charters 2016, p.71). The original wine tourism site plans were revisited. Ultimately,
Bordeaux lost out to Marseille as the “European Capital of Culture” but in light of the global
economic down turn, and its effect on the Bordelaise wine industry, the appetite to build
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something which would invigorate and support the wine industry was present and so the
plans for La Cité Du Vin progressed.
Unlike other beverage tourism sites such as, wineries, distilleries or even the Guinness
Storehouse, which tend to be private enterprises, it is important to note how the Cité du Vin
was funded. Most notable beverage tourism sites are operated as part of for-profit companies.
The beverage tourist attraction tends to run as an ancillary aspect of the main beverage
production business. La Cité Du Vin is a significant example of beverage tourism, not only
because of the scope of its ambition as a striking architectural entity, but also in that it was
funded by public funds, private investment and is administered by a trust. Underpinning its
ethos as a part-publicly funded space, the grounds are a landscaped public park, thoughtfully
planted with native flora in keeping with its natural quayside environment. Within the
building, there are public spaces such as the library, which are free to visit and people can eat
in the cafes and restaurants without paying an admission fee. Moreover, when planning
activities and exhibitions in the gallery spaces, attention is given as to how these changing,
temporary exhibitions can be used to forge links with the city of Bordeaux. When the gallery
space held its first exhibition, celebrating French Café culture (Bistro! From Baudelaire to
Picasso 17th March – 21st June 2017), excursions were organised so that visitors who booked
a guided tour of the exhibition could then, as a group, take a tram to the centre of Bordeaux to
visit Café des Arts and partake in an aperitif. This demonstrates a willingness to connect with
commercial private enterprises and business in the city and to make best use of public
infrastructure such as public transport, thus embedding this new building and cultural tourism
site into the fabric of the city. Through this form of considered programming La Cité du Vin
contextualises its presence, aligning itself with the history of the city of Bordeaux and
contemporary city life.
Why compare these beverage tourism sites?
Both La Cité Du Vin and the Guinness Storehouse are examples of successful beverage
tourism sites. Yet, it is not just their success and the scale of their ambition that makes them
good comparators. While they are both distinct sites, their genesis and evolution are
intertwined. In researching best practice regarding beverage tourism, the team behind La Cité
Du Vin, embarked on extensive benchmarking to understand the appeal of popular
international cultural and tourist attractions such as the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin the
Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam. These visits informed the
structure, format and design of La Cite Du Vin and provided cultural and financial
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justification for some of the more radical decisions, especially those concerning the buildings
striking architectural design.
[The Guinness Storehouse] gets a million visitors a year. [We went] to visit it […].
There’s a sort of enormous circular ramp. As you go up the ramp, you gradually come
across various stages that tell you the complete story of beer. It’s very clever and it is
also elegant. It’s simple and you never get bored at all. I found it incredible! It’s a great
success, if you like it. So we went to analyse it. It helped us a lot.[…] In fact, we looked
for ideas everywhere! We invented nothing! (Silvie Cazes in interview with Cusin and
Passebois-Ducros 2015).1
This exchange of knowledge appears to be reciprocal. Shortly after La Cité du Vin opened, a
team from Guinness visited (Kavanagh 2017).
Yet while they have influenced each other, their approaches and responsibilities are
remarkably different. Examining la Cité du Vin’s events programme, it is interesting to note
many events organised and planned to encourage local engagement. There are workshops,
talks, concerts and a family-friendly tasting programme, where children along with their
parents can participate in age appropriate sensory workshops. Alcohol is not part of the
family tasting experience and these events are hosted in French rather than English and are
scheduled at weekends or after work. There appears to be a desire for La Cité Du Vin to be a
municipal space which can be used by tourists and locals alike. This approach is in contrast to
the tourist centred Guinness Storehouse. The Guinness Storehouse is not open to the public at
night time and there is little or no effort to engage local use of the site or to connect the
Guinness Storehouse in any tangible way to the city of Dublin. La Cité Du Vin, exemplifies a
harmony between a commercial beverage tourism site, the interests of the wine industry and a
commitment to responsible use of public funds. Through careful negotiations with
stakeholders and unwavering persistence by a core group of committed individuals to realise
the project, it has become a standard for integrated beverage tourism (Cusin and Passebois-
Ducros 2015).
The Visitor Experience
Within beverage tourism, dedicated beverage tourism sites such as the Guinness Storehouse
and Le Cité Du Vin provide a different beverage tourism experience to other beverage
1 Cusin and Passebois-Ducros anonymised their interviewees. This quote is from an interview with WPB who
they identify as a “wine producer in the Bordeaux vineyards”. They further identify this interviewee as the
“person in charge of promoting the wine and wine tourism sector for Bordeaux town council” and having been
involved with the project from 2008. In her biography available from www.chateauchauvin.com (accessed 20
Apr. 18) Cazes confirms that she held this position during this time period so I can attribute this quote to her.
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tourism offerings such as wine trails, vineyards, cellar door shops or visits to award winning
restaurants with extensive wine lists. Separating the hands-on beverage production from the
visitor experience, frames the beverage in a different light. Visiting is not curtailed by the day
to day business of production and offers an experience which is not dictated by the harvest or
other agronomic and commercial constraints. A visitor can have a similar experience
regardless of the time of the year they visit. This adds to the homogenisation of the
experience and mirrors the consistent visitor experiences offered by attractions such as theme
parks. In both of these beverage tourism sites, careful attention is paid as to how the scene is
set, the process of production is sanitised and, in many ways, simplified, so that visitors can
understand the process as easily as possible. This approach utilises storytelling techniques
which would not be out of place in a theatre setting. We have characters; the visitors, the
guides and the staff. The physical building functions much like a theatrical set, the visitors
journey through the elements of the story of Guinness in a series of vignettes or scenes which
have been designed and lit appropriately. This journey and the physical building itself evoke
a settling pint of Guinness. Each visitor progresses through the floors of the column like
building from the dark windowless first floor, up through seven storeys. On each floor they
encountering a new aspect of the story of Arthur Guinness and his famous stout. Finally, they
reach the top of the building, the Gravity Bar, which is floor to ceiling glass with a 360
degree view of the city. The visitor has travelled from darkness into enlightenment. Drinking
a pint of stout, or at least tasting the beer at this visitor experience, is an immediately
identifiable experience which can only happen in Dublin. Context and location bring
significant weight to bear on the beverage. The caché of visiting Ireland’s capital city is
summed up in that one drink which, more often than not, is not even fully imbibed. Áine
Kavanagh, (Media Relations Manager, Guinness Storehouse, Diageo, Dublin) noted that a
considerable volume of Guinness served in the Gravity Bar at the Guinness Storehouse is left
undrunk and that many people would be surprised to learn how much of it is poured away
(Kavanagh 2017).
The visitor’s journey to La Cité du Vin mirrors the visit experience in the Guinness Store
house although the architecture of La Cité Du Vin is a more prominent aspect of the visitor
experience and the visual story of the site. A gleaming swirl of glass, lacquered aluminium
and towering wooden staves greet visitors. At first sight, La Cité du Vin, Bordeaux, is a far
cry from musty wine museums populated by wax work figures. Admiring the building from
the viewing point close to the dedicated tram stop, the striking architecture and ambition of
this monument to wine recalls the impression the city of Bordeaux has made on many
merchants, sailors and visitors entranced by its wine and its history for centuries.
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The great quays were packed close with barrels as far as the eye could follow- barrels
on whose end were hieroglyphs that told of aristocratic birth as plainly as the armorial
bearings on a carriage; the streets were full of long narrow carts like ladders on wheels,
laden also with barrels, one behind the other; and about every five minutes, as it seemed
to us, some big ship moved out from the wharf, filled to the brim with claret, and
slipped down the yellow current to other climes (Somerville & Ross 1893, pp.140-141).
There is no doubt that the scale and ambition of the building is in keeping with the sweeping
scale of the story it aims to tell. A story that not only recognises the history and legacy of the
Bordelaise wine industry but acknowledges Bordeaux’s position as a global standard for wine
production and trade. La Cité du Vin, aims to position Bordeaux as a gateway, not just to the
wines of Aquitaine or even France, but as a starting point from which to learn about all of the
world’s wine regions. Moreover, La Cite Du Vin has ambitions as a global standard for
beverage visitor experiences providing information, history and interactive sensory
experiences, picture perfect for an Instagram generation.
Conclusion
The Guinness Storehouse and La Cité Du Vin draw on a long history between the city in
which they are located and the iconic beverage associated with those cities. They leverage
this history and cultural caché to create an emotional connection between consumers/visitors
and the beverages at the centre of the tourist experience. They have tapped into the growing
beverage tourism sector and a desire to travel and seek authentic experiences. In this respect,
consuming beverages at the site of their origins is a pilgrim-like experience. Whereas in times
past, pilgrims visited to holy wells, tourists now drink at commercial fountains. The success
of these sites is testament to their design and vision. They utilise aspects of scenography and
narrative components to lead visitors on a journey of beverage discovery which is not
burdened but mundane or over technical aspects of production, which culminates in drinking
that beverage from an elevated vantage point overlooking Dublin or Bordeaux. They are
pioneering examples of best practice beverage tourism. Each sight has influenced the other,
together they have become part of a conversation which leads and progresses dedicated
beverage tourism experiences.
https://arrow.dit.ie/jofis/vol6/iss1/3 12Boyle: through a glass darkly
Susan Boyle is a drinks consultant, researcher, writer and performer. Susan is an Arts
Council Creative Associate working on the Creative School pilot project. She holds an
undergraduate degree in Drama from Trinity College, Dublin and the University of California
Irvine, and a masters in Performance Studies from The University of London, Royal
Holloway. She is currently studying for a PhD. at the TU Dublin, Tallaght. Her areas of
interest include beverages, performance, storytelling, narrative strategy and place. She was
awarded an outstanding speaker prize at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2018.
An award-winning member of the British Guild of Beer Writers, Susan writes about drinks,
presents a regular television drinks segment and hosts beverage events for industry
professionals and the public. She is a co-founder of Two Sisters Brewing and has worked
with the British Museum to brew a 5,000-year-old beer supported by ancient Egyptian
archaeological evidence. Susan’s critically acclaimed one-woman wine tasting show “A
Wine Goose Chase” has toured widely.
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